Swallows evolve shorter wings to avoid cars, study suggests

I heard about this on Coast to Coast again of course. The are a few reasons i was curious about this...

1. They evolved shorter wings.

Does this support evolution theory, and in such a short period of time?

He and colleague Mary Bomberger Brown from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, know for a fact that the bird population overall has shorter wings
today than it did when the researchers first started studying it in 1982 and the road-killed birds have longer wings than average.

2. Our impact on our environment is incredible.

From what i personally observe in the universe i have noticed that everything will balance out, it has to in order for it to work. So my question is,
when is nature going to balance us out?

If wingspan affects the ability to get out of the way of trouble and given the swifts i see are strafing into groups of insects who may be near roads
and so they dive in to grab some insects from the lay by but unfortunately they don't notice the 40 ton truck in the way and whammo, so the shorter
winged ones who have a better chance of avoiding the truck survive well that atleast proves basic darwinian principles

I know it's not the same thing.....but I noticed the last 12 months that bird's in my area normally only heard during the day are singing at all
hour's through the night...so I looked into the reason's why.

Apparently it's a combination of light pollution during the night and also because of noise pollution during the day forcing the bird's to sing at
night time to be heard and attract a mate.

Adaptation is evolution.
Evolution is a slow process born by adaptation to the environment.

Religious bias?

edit on 22-3-2013 by Toadmund because: (no reason given)

evolution stands and falls on becoming a new species, which clearly this does not show- humans have grown considerably in the last 100 years, this is
not macro evolution either. I realise that this would, in theory, take a helluva long time, and as such, it will just be yours (and others) beliefs

No I do not have a better theory. However, I'm not one to make random theories about why species adapt without first fully understanding the
adaptations.

It makes them more maneuverable so there are literally thousands of reasons such an adaptation would become necessary, avoiding traffic being one tiny
little thing on that huge list. It just seems to me that where mankind wants credit, they will give it to themselves regardless of how realistic it
may be.

No I do not have a better theory. However, I'm not one to make random theories about why species adapt without first fully understanding the
adaptations.

It makes them more maneuverable so there are literally thousands of reasons such an adaptation would become necessary, avoiding traffic being one tiny
little thing on that huge list. It just seems to me that where mankind wants credit, they will give it to themselves regardless of how realistic it
may be.

A theory is that every creature has a field of bio-cognition. This would mean that what happens to the animal, gets recorded into the field. The next
generation is born with a slight alteration based on what happend to it's parents. This would explain how a creature can develope defence mechanisims
over successive generations. Just a thought could cause cellular change. Example: I sure would like to climb that tree, but can't. This thought is
then imprinted into the field. This would then give rise to an offspring with a variation more suited to climbing.

Automobiles have been around for oh, 127 years? Swallows (but apparently not other birds) have managed to adapt in that time by producing shorter
wingspans "according to scientists" in their infinite wisdom.

Humans on the other hand have reportedly been around as homo sapiens for roughly 250,000 years according to these same scientists. You know what has
been plaguing us that entire time? Tornados. Volcanos. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Lightning. Wind. Rain.

I wonder, did we gain any new physical traits in those 250,000 years to combat such common things? Nope. One might argue that in the case of humanity,
technology has taken up that role and made adaptation unnecessary, but at the same time that damn squirrel is still running across the road in front
of me and everyone else and turning around at the last second. I don't see him or anything else adapting to automobiles.

So, to assume that swallows have adapted to automobiles is ignorance on scientists parts because they simply NEED to have an explanation, and instead
of actually searching for the real explanation - modern science instead seeks to create ones. And the ones that are most popular are anything to do
with human intervention, because it makes us as a race feel oh so more involved and powerful over the world around us.

Fact is, these scientists have no idea why SOME swallows developed shorter wings just why scientists can't tell you why some humans have shorter
arms. I never said all humans are shorter or have shorter arms, I'm saying some do and it has nothing to do with adaptation it just has to do with
genetic differences and the passing of traits.

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